1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to keyboards and more particularly keyboards for use in conjunction with computers and related hardware.
2. Background of the Invention
Heretofore computer keyboards have used numerous varieties of rubber material for control contacts or insulating contacts for the purpose of replacing a spring within the keyboard buttons. It is generally known in the art that once a computer keyboard button is pressed, each button must exhibit an ability to immediately cover and restore its initial home position. One method of keyboard key recovery was to place a button on the helical spring which biases the button upward and normally off. When such a spring loaded button is depressed and then released, the spring causes the button to be restored to its original non-contact position. Using elastic rubber is currently practiced in place of a spring. A keyboard made from rubber is significantly resilient to restore its original form without the need for insertion of a spring within the button. Existing keyboards have used elastic rubber as the material of preferred choice to form keyboards which have the capacity of allowiing keyboard buttons to be restored to their original position. An example of current keyboards formed from rubber material is shown in FIGS. 1, 1--1, and 1-2. Such keyboards made from rubber are generally too soft, and the basic pad is not easily aligned during installation so that correspondence of the holes 11 with pins on the computer for securing the keyboard to its housing is not easily achieved. Generally, in order to allow a keyboard made from rubber material to properly be coincided and placed on a frame in the manufacturing process, manual assistance is necessary to assemble the keyboard and use of a machine to accomplish the assembly of a conventional keyboard as shown in FIG. 1 is not ideally achievable. Additionally important is the fact that the shrinkage rate of rubber is high, especially when rubber is used as a single entire piece to make up the keyboard. More sophisticated production techniques are required to achieve the precision necessary for a unitary one piece rubber keyboard to the placed within the framework of an entire keyboard assembly. The aforesaid assembly problem being complex is not easily adaptable for automatic assembly thereby driving the cost of manufacture and sale high. Heretofore, therefore, traditional computer keyboards which use rubber material for the board do not allow an economical sale that may be achieved with a lower production cost. The high cost of production for conventional keyboards is a distinct disadvantage of prior keyboard designs.